Video: Sensors Strapped to Kites Search for Clues in Beijing's Dirty Air

In light of recent news about air quality in Beijing, we thought it was a good opportunity to repost a great video from our partner site ChinaFile. This video, entitled Stars in the Haze, follows the story of FLOAT, a project developed by U.S. graduate students Xiaowei Wang and Deren Guler to monitor Beijing's air quality. It offers a unique look at how the common Beijing practice of kite flying can be used to easily monitor the city's air quality.

Here's an excerpt from the original post on ChinaFile:

FLOAT organized workshops in Beijing to teach both veteran and fledgling kite flyers how to build simple pollution sensors that travel into the Chinese capital’s soupy skies and send data back to the people on the ground.

China’s leaders have long treated air pollution data as a kind of state secret. FLOAT’s message is that monitoring the air ought to be an activity open to anyone who breathes it.